Everton vs Man United

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:One painful aspect of this conversation is the fact that I find myself describing Benfica as a feeder club for the big boys.

That's Benfica, Eusebio's club, twice European champions, in fact the first club other than Real Madrid to win the European Cup. 10 European final appearances in all, now selling their best players to the vultures. Same with Ajax, Cruyff's club, who in those days were able to keep Cruyff for nine seasons and won three European Cups on the bounce while doing so.

Look at the list of different clubs that won European trophies in the 1980s:

Forest
Liverpool
Villa
Hamburg
Juventus
Steaua Bucharest
Porto
PSV
Milan (so that's 9 different European Cup winners in 10 years)
Valencia
Dinamo Tbilisi
Barcelona
Aberdeen
Everton
Dynamo Kiev
Ajax
Mechelen (that's also nine different CWC Winners in 10 years - Juventus also won a CWC, and Barca won two of them.)
Eintracht Frankfurt
Ipswich
Gothenburg
Anderlecht
Tottenham
Real Madrid
Bayer Leverkusen
Napoli (8 different winners of the UEFA Cup - Gothenburg and Real Madrid won it twice)

30 European trophies shared around 25 different clubs from loads of different countries in a single decade. Fantastic. With the list containing some unlikely names - Tbilisi, Ipswich, Mechelen, Aberdeen, Clough's Forest (I often wonder what sort of managerial career Clough would have had if he'd been around 30 years later. Probably now managing Inter Milan having already won European trophies with Man U, Bayern Munich, PSG and Barcelona and still having been sacked by all of them. Part of the super-manager merry-go-round, no doubt. Imagine a world in which Ancelotti had stuck with Reggiana, his first managerial job, and won two European Cups with them.)

I digress. Now, teams that won a European trophy in the 2010s.

Inter Milan (1 Champions League)
Barcelona (2 Champions Leagues)
Atletico Madrid (3 UEFA Cups)
Porto (1 UEFA Cup)
Chelsea (1 Champions League, 2 UEFA Cups)
Bayern Munich (1 Champions League)
Real Madrid (4 Champions Leagues)
Sevilla (3 UEFA Cups)
Man Utd (1 UEFA Cup)
The Shite (1 Spawny Champions League)

Only two cup competitions rather than the old three, of course, and Sevilla in particular deserve all the credit going for their record. But what a boring list otherwise, not so much the smaller number of teams but the small number of powerhouse countries that they hail from. Spain have been dominant of course, winning 12 of the 20 on offer, and English clubs won five. Outside of that only Italy, Portugal and Germany got a look in with one each.

I suppose everyone would slag off a Mechelen v Dinamo Tbilisi European final these days. Oh, what a shit game. The CL super club mantra and marketing has conditioned us to think that, and of course all the best players end up at a few select clubs anyway nowadays. But for me that was part of the magic of football in the 70s and 80s, that someone like Dukla Prague or Feyenoord could rock up to Goodison Park for a European game and you'd know absolutely fuck all about them, but they could still play you off the park and knock you out.

I know they won't care about this but they've stolen my game and it pisses me off. Fuck the PL. Fuck UEFA. End Football.